Salient to Investors: Home prices are rising faster than incomes in much of the US. Thomas Lawler at Lawler Economic & Housing Consulting said the decline of first-time homebuyers, hurt by rising prices and tougher credit standards threatens to widen the wealth gap between owners and renters. Lawler said potential
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Zillow expects 5 percent mortgages by year-end and the 10 places where the percentage of monthly income will be pushed furthest above the average are, in order: Stockton, Ca – where the median price of a home will rise 22.8 percent by September. Honolulu, Ha – where
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Guy Cecala at Inside Mortgage Finance said jumbo loans, mostly adjustable but also fixed-rate, increased by 34 percent in the first 9 months of 2013. Greg McBride at Bankrate said cash-rich banks, including Wells Fargo and Bank of America are using ARMs to hedge the loans’ longer-term
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Neil Dutta at Renaissance Macro Research said most regions are experiencing strong home-price appreciation off a low base, while cities with the biggest price appreciation are in places that had bigger busts. Fitch Ratings said price gains are unsustainable, with cities such as San Francisco and San
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Michael Cudzil at Pimco said: The Fed will taper because it looks at progress over a long-term period of time, rather than any one given month, and because there are doubts among some policy makers about how effective QE has been in boosting the economy amid concern
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Caroline Baum writes: The residential real-estate market has just got going and only in the last 2 years has residential investment contributed in any significant way to economic growth. July single-family housing starts of an annual rate of 591,000 is a long way from the peak of 1.8 million
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Adrian Miller at GMP Securities said 2 weeks of Fed-speak have laid the foundation for a September tapering. Bill Gross at Pimco said no more QE mean no more bull markets. The 30-year bond yield was 3.91 percent on August 19, the most since August 2011. Vincent Chaigneau at Societe Generale said 10-year
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Miller Samuel and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate report home sales in New York’s Hamptons in Q2 were up 25 percent from a year earlier and the most since Q2 2006, while the median price rose 8.2 percent to $920,000. The absorption rate was 7 months, the
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: ARM applications in late June rose to the highest level since 2008. loan pay Cameron Findlay at Discover Financial Service said we’ve seen a shift in the way people look at adjustable-rate mortgages: they are still skeptical but the sticker shock of fixed rates is making them
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman Real Estate said the median price of Brooklyn condominiums, co-ops and 1- to 3-family homes that sold in Q2 was $550,000, up 15 percent from a year earlier and the highest in more than a decade of record keeping. Jonathan Miller at Miller Samuel said the inventory of
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